Communication from management is good about where the company is headed. In my opinion, this is a great time to be working in the video game industry. Management does a good job of dealing with personnel issues. Fun people to work with.

Cons

Lower pay than other companies in the industry. I took a paycut to come here from a marketing firm. It's a large company so if you are not interested in corporate America don't come here.

Advice to Management

Good job communicating with staff. Changes are being made right now and I can't really comment until I see any result.

The perks....free games, time during the work day to take a break and play games, flexibility in your work schedule, nice campus, benefits.

Cons

Really, really big company means its hard to really excel. Its a pretty corporate environment as far as games go, to a fault. Some of the hires are questionable, not enough of the middle managers know the industry. Because of the size, people can skate by with shoddy work, which is frustrating when you are busting your ass.

Under Riccitiello, each studio within EA is gaining more independence, giving us more creative freedom, while the benefits of working for a corporate giant (benefits, marketing power, etc) remain. Beyond that, it's studio dependent. Don't necessarily assume a valid gripe from one employee is a corporate-wide problem.

Cons

It's still the games industry. The hours can be longer and the pay is usually less. If gaming is not something you love, you'll be happier elsewhere.

Advice to Management

Be more aggressive about cutting bad employees at all levels. Work harder at developing new technologies. Take more design risks.

Casual and fun work environment; great products; talented and passionate co-workers; personal satisfaction of working on something that people enjoy; highly challenging work managing iterative and creative development

Cons

Hit and miss success of videogames across the industry and at EA (spend 2 years of your life working on a product that is forgotten 2 months after release); long hours leading up to game release; managing younger, less professional employees at times can be an extreme challenge; turnover at some of the studios makes it more difficult to develop products to schedule

Advice to Management

Continue to develop internal intellectual property; reward studios and their employees greatly for their successes; provide enough time and investment to ensure a quality product is being delivered

THIS pertains to The Sims Label of EA!!!! The SIMS division works extremely hard to keep a healthy environment for the employees. Even though they function under the umbrella of EA the structure the division functions so well that they have somehow created a template for how the rest of the company’s labels should operate. The people at Maxis/Sims Label are extremely knowledgeable. I couldn't ask for more amiable personalities either. The work ethic there is very proactive and many innovations in production are made there. It’s a great place to start your career in Video Game Development. You will learn pipeline workflows and get production experience that can be scalable to any future project you will work on. I have visited the campus in Emeryville as well. The energy there is very exciting. You feel that industry pioneering is happening there.

Cons

Most of the products are not linear experiences so focusing on a behavioral system limits the visual tech that you can put into the game because it takes a significant processor hit on lower end gaming platforms. Even working on the PC titles because so much computational engineering effort needs to go into the behavioral systems of the game. You may not be able to work in the Science fiction or Fanatasy genres which usually push the level of detail that current generation console games have to offer. The fixed art style of the Sims Label is mainly geared toward the casual gaming crowd so if you want to make guns, aliens, zombies and vampires you may want to go to a different division. Also when launching new IP they tend to give short development cycles which isn't enough time for a Dev Team to really get a solid industry leading product that they can be proud of.

Advice to Management

Even in this recession we need to get more time on a project. Leading titles are made over a few years not a portion of a year. Many projects already exist to hold the Label in strong position. Allow the new IP's to simmer, keep development efforts focused on new experiences and quality. Then overtime you'll have more industry innovating products that will strengthen the already solid foundation that Maxis/The Sims is on.

Benefits, 3 weeks first year plus they are closed between Christmas and New Years so it's like 4 weeks. 7 week Sabatical after 6 years + normal vacation. Great healthcare plan. Always working on cool things